One headstone at a time: Meet the man who’s restoring orphan graves in Owatonna
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A few years ago, Tim Shea and his partner Linda Donadei made a daytrip from the Twin Cities to the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children in Owatonna, which housed, fed and educated orphaned children from 1886 until 1945.
While they were exploring the historical site and museum there, Shea and Donadei wandered over to the campus’s cemetery where nearly 200 children who lived at the school are buried. The gravestones were in bad shape.
“You couldn’t read it, you couldn’t see the name, you couldn’t see the date, everything,” said Shea. “I said, ‘Somebody should really clean it and do something about it, but who’s going to do it?’”
Donadei didn’t miss a beat.
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“She says, ‘You are.’ And she said it with such conviction, [I] didn’t even argue,” said Shea.
That one conversation triggered what’s become a major volunteer project for Shea. Over the last few years, he’s meticulously scrubbed each head stone, using the same kind of d/2 biological solution used to clean granite and stone at Arlington Cemetery.
He also started sleuthing for more information about each child buried there using records from the Minnesota History Center’s library.
“I got more interested in the children,” he said. “‘Who are these kids? I know your name, I know what date you were born, what date you died, but I don't know anything about you.’”
Giving them their voices back
Shea said knowing each child’s backstory has helped him become less judgmental about the children's lives and the difficulties and hardships experienced by their parents.
One child named Chester McLaughlin buried there stands out. Through his research, Shea learned that Chester’s father lost the use of his hands fighting in the Civil War. His wife died by suicide. With older kids at home, his father sent Chester to the state school.
“I thought, ‘It was out of his hands, he couldn’t do it,’” said Shea.
Chester died of tuberculosis when he was 16. Many of the children buried here died of diseases such as measles or diphtheria before there were vaccines that could protect the children from them, said Anne Peterson who manages the state school museum.
“Most of the kids had at least one parent living. A mom might die in childbirth, and then dad had all these seven, eight kids. He would keep the older boys to try to keep the farm going, but you know, he couldn't take care of the little ones,” she said.
Shea’s research has found that some of these kids lived with abusive parents and were probably better off at the school.
But others were missed at home.
“In these files, there’s letters from these mothers. ‘Please let me have my child back.’ I find lockets, the mother had sent lockets with her picture in it. You look at that, and it’s heartbreaking. They just crave their children,” said Shea.
Peterson welcomes Shea’s efforts because she said these children would otherwise be forgotten. “As far as the stories of the children, they’re just very tragic, some of them very sad. But right now, I think we’re giving them their voices back,” she said.
More restoration ahead
Sixteen-year-old Xavier Trager has joined Shea’s volunteer efforts. He’s helping scrub, clean and readjust the gravestones and spruce up the cemetery as part of his Eagle Scout project.
He recalls what the cemetery looked like when he first started.
“It’s hard to remember now, because it looks nicer now,” he said. “It did not look good. It just looked forgotten.”
Now, Trager is thinking about other ways the children buried here won’t be forgotten. He’s working with Shea on plans to plant a garden. He wants to help create an interactive website that tells stories about each child based on Shea’s research.
Recently, Shea’s efforts were awarded a $10,000 grant that will help cover the cost of an irrigation system to keep landscaping alive and healthy. Some of the money will also go to masonry repair.
The restoration work has become deeply personal for Shea. “These kids have become my kids, you know,” he said. “You get very protective of them after a while.”
